Charleston, SC: The Best Cities in the MSA for Investment

The Charleston, SC MSA has a few cities, but which ones are the best for long-term multifamily investment? Is it Charleston proper? Or an individual town just outside of Charleston? Would that town be affordable enough for an investor just starting out? Let’s dig into the data.

As always, my data analysis studies use the US Census ACS 5-Year survey data (as the 1-Year survey only includes towns above a 65,000 population, which means the 5-Year survey sacrifices accuracy for breadth).

In my case, the biggest down payment I’m comfortable with at the moment is $60,000. If I got a loan for 25% down, that leaves my maximum purchase price at $240,000. Whatever your maximum purchase price is, keep that in mind for the next section.

Median Price

Let’s see which cities I’m likely priced out of.

Click on the image to open it in a new tab, then you can zoom in.

Rent-Price Ratio

Now let’s look at the rent-to-price ratio (median rent divided by median price) per city.

Percent Renter-Occupied

I don’t want to find a city that’s growing fast in population, but only to learn it’s a new suburb that recently finished construction on many owner-occupied single family houses. I want a place with a healthy percentage of renters.

Population Growth

Which places are experiencing the highest percentage of population growth, over a 5-year period? Let’s take a look.

Rent Growth

What about the highest percentage of rent growth from 2016-2021?

My Top Choices

First, I created a weighted growth index based on population growth, rent growth, income growth, and price appreciation.

Then, I filtered out all cities where the median price was greater than $250,000 (which prices me out). Then I filtered out all cities where the percentage of renter-occupied units was less than 30%. (If you’d like me to create a custom filter based on your needs, shoot me a private message and hopefully I’ll have time to help out.)

Then I sorted my leftover cities by rent-price ratio, while also keeping the growth index and percent-renter-occupied numbers in account.

These were the top cities:

1. North Charleston

2. Summerville

Filtering by YoY percent population growth:

1. North Charleston

2. Summerville

Filtering by YoY percent rent growth:

1. North Charleston

2. Summerville

Filtering by YoY percent income growth:

1. North Charleston

2. Summerville

Ranking Conclusion

North Charleston, SC appeared near the top of every filter and ranking I applied (again, without including cities with a median price greater than $250,000 or less than 30% renter-occupied).

Summerville, SC also appears to be a growing place that is affordable enough for cash-strapped new investors.

Goose Creek, SC gets an honorable mention for good growth metrics despite being only 28% renter-occupied. Charleston, SC also gets an honorable mention for having the best growth metrics overall, despite having a $369,500 median rent (which is over budget).

Crime

North Charleston, SC appears to have less crime near the northwestern part of town, and more crime in the eastern part of town. It also appears to have more crime than any other city in the Charleston, SC MSA.

Summerville, SC appears to have slightly more crime than Charleston, SC on average.

Goose Creek, SC appears to have an even lower crime rate than Summerville, SC.

Final Rankings

In the future, an analysis at the neighborhood (census tract) level should be conducted, as there may be neighborhoods in Charleston, SC itself that outpace these cities in terms of population, rent, and income growth (but are still affordable).

So my top picks for the Charleston, SC MSA for 2023 come out to these:

1. North Charleston, SC

2. Summerville, SC

If I could afford it, I would rank Charleston, SC as #1 instead.